Dean

General Responsibilities

Professor Donald Chalmers is Dean of the Law School and Distinguished Professor.
He is a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. He is Adjunct Professor of Law of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. He is Chair of the Australian Red Cross Ethics Committee, Deputy Chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Embryo Research Licensing Committee and a member of the NHMRC Human Genetics Advisory Committee. He is a member of the Human Genome Organisation Ethics Committee. He is Chair of the Gene Technology Ethics and Community Consultative Committee established under the Gene Technology Act 2000, Chair of the Australian Red Cross Ethics Committee, Deputy Chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Embryo Research Licensing Committee and a member of the NHMRC Human Genetics Advisory Committee.

He was Chair of the NHMRC Australian Health Ethics Committee (AHEC) from 1994 to 2000, during which time the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research involving Humans was published. He was Chair of the Gene Technology Ethics Committee, 2001-2007; Board member of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, 1998-2006; Chair of the Commonwealth Ministerial Review of the National Ethics Committee system, 1994-95; Chair of the Review of the Scientific Ethical and Regulatory considerations relevant to the Cloning of Human Beings, 1998-1999; member of the Commonwealth Biotechnology Advisory Council, 1999-2002; Law Reform Commissioner for Tasmania, 1991-1997; and, consultant to the Australian Law Reform Commission Report on the genetic privacy, 2001-2003. He was chair of the Australian Institute of Health, Law and Ethics from 2002-2005.

He represented AHEC at the San Francisco, Tokyo and London World Summits of National Bioethics Commissions. He has been a member of the International Scientific Review Panel of Genome Canada since 2004 and a member of the 24 country Dialogue on Bioethics in Asia from 2002-2008. He was co-Chair of the Salzburg Seminar on Biotechnology in 2001, advisor to the United States National Bioethics Advisory Commission and reviewer of the Nuffield Council of Bioethics in the United Kingdom. He has given many invited Keynote Addresses in Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, Malaysia and the UNESCO International Bioethics Round Table Bangkok. He is working with Professor Ida, Kyoto University, on Bioethics Law in Japan.

Units Taught

Research Interests

He is the author of books on criminal law, legal studies and trusts. He has contributed to legal treatises including Laws of Australia, Halsbury’s and the International Encyclopaedia of Medical Law. His major research interests are health law and genetics, research ethics and law reform. He is Director of the Centre for Law and Genetics. He has been chief investigator on four successive Australian Research Council discovery grants. He is also chief investigator on an NHMRC program grant. His current research work involves an examination of the legal and governance arrangements for human tissue biobanks

Selected Publications:

• DRC Chalmers, 2007, 'International Co-operation Between Biobanks: The Case for Harmonisation of Guidelines and Governance', Human Biotechnology & Public Trust: Trends, Perceptions and Regulation, Centre for Law and Genetics, Mark Stranger (ed), pgs. 237-246
• DRC Chalmers, 2008, 'Regulating Genetic Information in the Genome Era: Australian and International Perspectives', 3rd Conference on Law & Technology: Abstracts and Proceedings,, 11-12 November 2008, Malaysia, , pgs. 31-39
• G Dal Pont, DRC Chalmers and J Maxton, 2007, 'Equity & Trusts - Commentary and Materials', Lawbook Co.
• DRC Chalmers, 2007, 'The Governance of Biobanks and Databases for Research - Towards an International Consensus on Ethical Principles', Taiwan Journal of Law and Technology Policy, 4 (1), pgs. 5-40
• DRC Chalmers, 2008, 'The Regulation of Embryo and Stem Cell Research in Australia: Licensing with a Restrictive Tilt', Journal of International Biotechnology Law, 05 (05), pgs. 177-185
• D Nicol and DRC Chalmers, 2008, 'Human genetic research databases and biobanks: Towards uniform terminology and Australian best practice', Journal of Law and Medicine,, 15 (4), pgs. 538-555
• MJA Stranger, EJ Bell, D Nicol, MFA Otlowski and DRC Chalmers , 2008, 'Human genetic databanks in Australia: indications of inconsistency and confusion', New Genetics and Society, 27 (4), pgs. 311-321

Full Publication List

Current and Supervised Project/s:

• The use of paediatric samples in Biobank Research - the legal issues?
• "Repairing engines of life"- a comparative analysis of the medico-legal and ethical isuses associated with embryonic stem cell research in Australia and Malaysia
• Freedom of Information Reform in China: Information Flow Analysis